This thesis presents Web Utility Kit (WUT): a platform that helps to simplify the process of creating modern web applications. It addresses the need to simplify the web development process through the creation of a hosted service that provides access to a unified set of resources. The resources are made available through a variety of protocols and formats to help simplify their consumption. It also provides a uniform model across all of its resources making multi-resource development an easier and more familiar task. WUT saves the time and cost associated with deployment, maintenance, and hosting of the hardware and software in which resources depend. It has a relatively low overhead averaging 123 ms per request and has been shown capable of linear scaling with each application server capable of handling 120+ requests per minute. This important property of being able to seamlessly scale to developer's needs helps to eliminate the expensive scaling process. Initial users of the platform have found it to be extremely easy to use and have paved the way for future developments.

This dissertation addresses issues for the efficient access to Web databases and services. We propose a distributed ontology for a meaningful organization of and efficient access to Web databases. Next, we dedicate most of our work on presenting a comprehensive query infrastructure for the emerging concept of Web services. The core of this query infrastructure is to enable the efficient delivery of Web services based on the concept of Quality of Web Service. Treating Web services as first class objects is a fundamental step towards achieving the envisioned Semantic Web. Semantics-aware processing of information requires intensive use of Web services. In our research, we propose a new query model where queries are resolved by combining Web service invocations. To efficiently deploy such scheme, we propose an optimization strategy based on aggregating Quality of Web service (QoWS) of different Web services. QoWS is adjusted through a dynamic rating scheme and multilevel matching. Web service rating provides an assessment of their behavior. The multilevel matching allows a larger solution space by enabling similar and partial answers. / Ph. D.

New technological advancements have resulted in a shift of medium. Music interaction has moved from physical media such as CDs and MP3-players to digital music services on the Internet. Vast catalogues of music is today available from any device with Internet access for either a monthly cost or even in some cases for free. Even though many users subscribe for the music they consume the music industry still experience an uncertain economy. New interaction opportunities and new design principles have derived from the new medium. According to users some functions are more important than others, some functions are even missing. Which are these? Are the users’ needs equivalent to the web development and the current supply of function the services offer? With vast consumption and immense establishment together with the tie in economic factors and technological development music streaming services is a given media technological phenomenon. This study’s purpose is to analyze three important components in the case of music streaming services: the supply, the user’s perspective and the position according to the web development. In order to increase the understanding of these parts this study has completed an inventory of current supply of functions in seven music streaming services and a questionnaire to conclude the user’s perspective. The study uses the theory of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 to examine current position of the services in web development. Possibly in this way the study might discover strengths and weaknesses in the supply of the music streaming services and thereupon contribute to suggestion of improvement and functions. Functions which might help the development of music streaming services and increase more paying consumers. This study show that the current supply of functions music streaming services offer is in general equivalent to the users’ need. However, the users don’t value social functions as an important part in music streaming services. They value a great catalogue of songs and great accessibility with commercial free use. The supply of functions doesn’t differ a lot from service to service. Spotify is the leading services both in quantity of functions and in number of users. Regarding the position of functions most functions is placed within Web 2.0. Thus, the user show an indication of the importance of accessibility which suit the vision of the ubiquitous and pervasive webb of Web 3.0. Even though the theory of Web 2.0 was coined 15 years ago the interactive music web service is mostly a product of Web 2.0. Despite of the satisfaction in supply, in terms of sustainability, it might always be a value to continue to examine the user’s need, the industry’s demands and the technological development to reach the highest form of contentment from all parts.

The last decade has demonstrated steady growth and utilization of Web Service technology. While Web Services have become significant in a number of IT domains such as eCommerce, digital libraries, data feeds, and geographical information systems, common portals or registries of Web Services require manual publishing for indexing. Manually compiled registries of Web Services have proven useful but often fail to include a considerable amount of Web Services published and available on the Web. We propose a system capable of finding, binding, and integrating Web Services into an index in an automated manner. By using a combination of guided search and web crawling techniques, the system finds a large number of Web Service providers that are further bound and aggregated into a single portal available for public use. Results show that this approach is successful in discovering a considerable number of Web Services in the GIS(Geographical Information Systems) domain, and demonstrate improvements over existing methods of Web Service Discovery.

Com a popularização da Web 2.0 e RIA - Rich Internet Applications, as aplicações web cada vez mais utilizam-se da linguagem JavaScript, para implementar recursos de interação sofisticados e complexos na plataforma da Web, visando atrair os usuários com experiências que agradem e atendam suas expectativas. Uma vez que esses recursos de RIA, muitas vezes, fornecem feedback visual de mudanças realizadas na interface, usuários que interagem com a Web por meio de Tecnologias Assistivas, como leitores de tela, não são capazes de identificar e interagir corretamente com os componentes de interface. Assim, a WAI - Web Accessibility Initiative propôs a especificação ARIA - Accessible Rich Internet Applications que determina um conjunto de propriedades que atribuem semântica aos elementos de um componente de interface (Widget), permitindo que as Tecnologias Assistivas identifiquem previamente o comportamento dos componentes de interface e informem o usuário sobre as alterações que possam ser realizadas na estrutura da página web. Nesse contexto, esta tese teve como objetivo elaborar estratégias de avaliação automática dos requisitos de acessibilidade da especificação ARIA. Foram elaboradas três diferentes abordagens para analisar os requisitos da especificação ARIA, utilizando a metodologia de pesquisa-ação com a condução de três ciclos das atividades de planejar, agir, descrever e avaliar. As abordagens foram desenvolvidas com base em Testes de Aceitação e verificações de características tecnológicas das aplicações web, considerando especificamente o modelo de interação de usuários deficientes visuais que utilizam leitores de tela. Cada uma das abordagens foi validada separadamente e os resultados apresentam tendências de que as estratégias são capazes de avaliar corretamente o comportamento esperado de uma aplicação rica de Internet acessível, segundo as recomendações ARIA para usuÁ¡rios deficientes visuais. As abordagens também apresentaram como contribuições: a inclusão do modelo de interação do usuário no processo de avaliação e levantamentos sobre os níveis de conformidade de aplicações web e bibliotecas JavaScript com a especificação ARIA. Os resultados obtidos a partir das abordagens propostas nesta tese contribuem para o processo de Engenharia Web de aplicações ricas de Internet acessíveis / With the increased popularity of the Web 2.0 and RIA - Rich Internet Applications, web applications rely more and more in JavaScript to implement richer and more complex interaction mechanisms in the Web platform. Since these mechanisms, frequently, generate dynamic updates to the DOM - Document Object Model structure of a webpage and require visual perception of users to notify them about these changes in the interface, users that interact with the Web through usage of Assistive Technologies such as a screen reader are not capable of correctly identifying and interacting with the interface components built with these technologies - the widgets. In this context, the WAI - Web Accessibility Initiative created the ARIA - Accessible Rich Internet Applications specification which describes the use of properties that add semantics to elements that compose a widget, allowing Assistive Technology to priorly identify the behavior of a widget and inform the user about changes that might be made to the DOM structure of the webpage. This thesis goal was to elaborate automatic evaluation strategies for accessibility requirements of the ARIA specification. Three evaluation strategies were elaborated following the research-action methodology with the conduction of three cycles of the activities of planning, acting, describing and evaluating. The strategies were implemented based in Acceptance Tests and verifications on specific details of the technology that compose web applications, considering specifically blind users interaction patterns through the use of screen readers. Each strategy was separately validated and the results show tendencies that the strategies were capable of correctly evaluating the behavior of web applications, considering their conformance with ARIA recommendations for blind users. The development and validation of the evaluation strategies also presented contributions by: including user interaction models in the automatic evaluation approaches and presenting a survey on web applications and JavaScript toolkits conformance rates with the ARIA specification. Thus contributing to the Web Engineering process of ARIA

Com a popularização da Web 2.0 e RIA - Rich Internet Applications, as aplicações web cada vez mais utilizam-se da linguagem JavaScript, para implementar recursos de interação sofisticados e complexos na plataforma da Web, visando atrair os usuários com experiências que agradem e atendam suas expectativas. Uma vez que esses recursos de RIA, muitas vezes, fornecem feedback visual de mudanças realizadas na interface, usuários que interagem com a Web por meio de Tecnologias Assistivas, como leitores de tela, não são capazes de identificar e interagir corretamente com os componentes de interface. Assim, a WAI - Web Accessibility Initiative propôs a especificação ARIA - Accessible Rich Internet Applications que determina um conjunto de propriedades que atribuem semântica aos elementos de um componente de interface (Widget), permitindo que as Tecnologias Assistivas identifiquem previamente o comportamento dos componentes de interface e informem o usuário sobre as alterações que possam ser realizadas na estrutura da página web. Nesse contexto, esta tese teve como objetivo elaborar estratégias de avaliação automática dos requisitos de acessibilidade da especificação ARIA. Foram elaboradas três diferentes abordagens para analisar os requisitos da especificação ARIA, utilizando a metodologia de pesquisa-ação com a condução de três ciclos das atividades de planejar, agir, descrever e avaliar. As abordagens foram desenvolvidas com base em Testes de Aceitação e verificações de características tecnológicas das aplicações web, considerando especificamente o modelo de interação de usuários deficientes visuais que utilizam leitores de tela. Cada uma das abordagens foi validada separadamente e os resultados apresentam tendências de que as estratégias são capazes de avaliar corretamente o comportamento esperado de uma aplicação rica de Internet acessível, segundo as recomendações ARIA para usuÁ¡rios deficientes visuais. As abordagens também apresentaram como contribuições: a inclusão do modelo de interação do usuário no processo de avaliação e levantamentos sobre os níveis de conformidade de aplicações web e bibliotecas JavaScript com a especificação ARIA. Os resultados obtidos a partir das abordagens propostas nesta tese contribuem para o processo de Engenharia Web de aplicações ricas de Internet acessíveis / With the increased popularity of the Web 2.0 and RIA - Rich Internet Applications, web applications rely more and more in JavaScript to implement richer and more complex interaction mechanisms in the Web platform. Since these mechanisms, frequently, generate dynamic updates to the DOM - Document Object Model structure of a webpage and require visual perception of users to notify them about these changes in the interface, users that interact with the Web through usage of Assistive Technologies such as a screen reader are not capable of correctly identifying and interacting with the interface components built with these technologies - the widgets. In this context, the WAI - Web Accessibility Initiative created the ARIA - Accessible Rich Internet Applications specification which describes the use of properties that add semantics to elements that compose a widget, allowing Assistive Technology to priorly identify the behavior of a widget and inform the user about changes that might be made to the DOM structure of the webpage. This thesis goal was to elaborate automatic evaluation strategies for accessibility requirements of the ARIA specification. Three evaluation strategies were elaborated following the research-action methodology with the conduction of three cycles of the activities of planning, acting, describing and evaluating. The strategies were implemented based in Acceptance Tests and verifications on specific details of the technology that compose web applications, considering specifically blind users interaction patterns through the use of screen readers. Each strategy was separately validated and the results show tendencies that the strategies were capable of correctly evaluating the behavior of web applications, considering their conformance with ARIA recommendations for blind users. The development and validation of the evaluation strategies also presented contributions by: including user interaction models in the automatic evaluation approaches and presenting a survey on web applications and JavaScript toolkits conformance rates with the ARIA specification. Thus contributing to the Web Engineering process of ARIA

Les pages web sont devenues plus complexes que jamais, principalement parce qu'elles sont générées par des systèmes de gestion de contenu (CMS). Il est donc difficile de les analyser, c'est-à-dire d'identifier et classifier automatiquement les différents éléments qui les composent. La segmentation de pages web est une des solutions à ce problème. Elle consiste à décomposer une page web en segments, visuellement et sémantiquement cohérents, appelés blocs. La qualité d'une segmentation est mesurée par sa correction et sa généricité, c'est-à-dire sa capacité à traiter des pages web de différents types. Notre recherche se concentre sur l'amélioration de la segmentation et sur une mesure fiable et équitable de la qualité des segmenteurs. Nous proposons un modèle pour la segmentation ainsi que notre segmenteur Block-o-Matic (BoM). Nous définissons un modèle d'évaluation qui prend en compte le contenu ainsi que la géométrie des blocs pour mesurer la correction d'un segmenteur par rapport à une vérité de terrain. Ce modèle est générique, il permet de tester tout algorithme de segmentation et observer ses performances sur différents types de page. Nous l'avons testé sur quatre segmenteurs et quatre types de pages. Les résultats montrent que BOM surpasse ses concurrents en général et que la performance relative d'un segmenteur dépend du type de page. Enfin, nous présentons deux applications développées au dessus de BOM. Pagelyzer compare deux versions de pages web et décide si elles sont similaires ou pas. C'est la principale contribution de notre équipe au projet européen Scape (FP7-IP). Nous avons aussi développé un outil de migration de pages HTML4 vers le nouveau format HTML5. / Web pages are becoming more complex than ever, as they are generated by Content Management Systems (CMS). Thus, analyzing them, i.e. automatically identifying and classifying different elements from Web pages, such as main content, menus, among others, becomes difficult. A solution to this issue is provided by Web page segmentation which refers to the process of dividing a Web page into visually and semantically coherent segments called blocks.The quality of a Web page segmenter is measured by its correctness and its genericity, i.e. the variety of Web page types it is able to segment. Our research focuses on enhancing this quality and measuring it in a fair and accurate way. We first propose a conceptual model for segmentation, as well as Block-o-Matic (BoM), our Web page segmenter. We propose an evaluation model that takes the content as well as the geometry of blocks into account in order to measure the correctness of a segmentation algorithm according to a predefined ground truth. The quality of four state of the art algorithms is experimentally tested on four types of pages. Our evaluation framework allows testing any segmenter, i.e. measuring their quality. The results show that BoM presents the best performance among the four segmentation algorithms tested, and also that the performance of segmenters depends on the type of page to segment.We present two applications of BoM. Pagelyzer uses BoM for comparing two Web pages versions and decides if they are similar or not. It is the main contribution of our team to the European project Scape (FP7-IP). We also developed a migration tool of Web pages from HTML4 format to HTML5 format in the context of Web archives.

可信度是網路服務首要解決的問題，我們從數位憑證，認證、授權、委任授權等安全層面去研究代理者可信度，並提出一套完整可信度規則分類機制當作信任度判斷的依據。在此篇論文中，我們論證如何將規則概念應用在代理者的溝通協定、服務流程控制上。我們並同時整合語意網規則和本體論的技術，以達到可信的網路服務環境。 / Trust is one of the most important issues for Web Services. We studied the agent trust problem based on security technologies, such as digital certificates, authentication, authorization, and delegation, etc. Furthermore, we propose a complete trust rule taxonomy mechanism to assistant us on the evaluation of agent trustworthiness. In this thesis, we justify the feasibility of using rule concepts on the agent communication protocol and service process control. We also demonstrated how to integrate the semantic web rules and ontologies to have a trusted web services environment.

This bachelor thesis dives into the topic of responsive images on the web. With more and more devices different devices accessing the web all with different conditions, serving the right image for each and every device is an important matter. This thesis looks into the topic and compares a few available techniques that potentially could solve this problem of providing the right image. This thesis will include a literature study as well as an experiment. When both these parts are done they will be presented, analyzed and summarized for the reader. The experiment is a performance benchmark of two different responsive image techniques, a non responsive image alternative is also tested in order to have something to evaluate the responsive image techniques with and see how big of a difference the techniques can make. Ultimately both responsive image techniques put through the experiment performed relatively even and both showed huge improvements in terms of performance over the non responsive alternative.

El ámbito educativo no es ajeno al creciente uso de las tecnologías de información y comunicación (TICs), por eso se encuentra que las instituciones de Educación Superior Universitaria publican en sus sitios web la información y los servicios más relevantes que brindan. Por otro lado, el acceso a los sistemas de información por parte de las personas con discapacidad constituye un derecho y para poder alcanzarlo es importante desarrollar características que permitan su accesibilidad. Conociendo esta problemática se realizó un diagnóstico de un conjunto de universidades públicas peruanas, a fin de conocer los problemas de accesibilidad web que presentan a nivel global y proveer recomendaciones adecuadas. Con este fin se seleccionaron un conjunto de páginas web de las Universidades Públicas Peruanas, considerando las recomendaciones de la Iniciativa de Accesibilidad Web (WAI) del World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) y su Metodología de Evaluación de Conformidad de la Accesibilidad Web en su versión 2.0. En función a los estudios de accesibilidad, se definió la forma de llevar a cabo el método de evaluación el cual se aplicó al dominio de estudio, obteniéndose bajos niveles de accesibilidad en los contenidos de las páginas Principal y de Oferta Académica de las Universidades Públicas analizadas, así como una lista de problemas comunes, para así plantear recomendaciones generales. / Tesis